Saturday, 22 June 2013

Cassy
Blythe wants her daughter Maddy to play football again next season at Strong
Rock Christian, a private school in Locust Grove, where the 12-year-old
girl had a great time playing this year.

Maddy
is among the middle school players in the team photo on the school web site,

But the
school has changed its policy and decreed that Maddy can't play on the boys'
team next year, devastating the girl and her family.

In a
telephone intervew today, Blythe said the decision came out of the blue. “I am
still in shock. I don’t know where it came from. All we had received from the
coaches was encouragement. ‘Maddy’s wonderful. We want her to keep playing. She
has found her niche.’’’

Blythe
said the school principal had even come to a game and watched Maddy play. “He
told me he was looking forward to her playing next year,” said Blythe, a former
police officer now at home raising six children ages 1 to 12. (Her brood
includes three stepchildren.)

But
apparently the school’s CEO was not a fan of a girl playing on the team.

The
family has launched aFacebook "Let
her play" campaignto
convince the school’s CEO to reconsider his decision that it would be
inappropriate for a girl to join the boys on the field -- even though Maddy
played this year and did well.

My Madison begged to play football for years. "Please, momma,
please let me play. I'm bigger and stronger than those boys. I can do it, mom,
I promise!" I broke down last year and let her play for her Christian
school. She's the product of a female cop, who am I to tell her no?

She was placed on the defensive line. Her coaches
bragged about how she hit and could take hits better than most of theboys. They
were proud of the female that took her helmet off at the end of the game,
exposing to the other team that they were taken down by a girl.

Her first quarterback sack was memorable. I overheard the other
parents thinking it was one of their boys who made the sack until Maddy got off
him. When they saw it was #82, they all looked in their lineup to see it was Maddy.

The crowd jumped to their feet and cheered! This happened several
more times during the season. Maddy could play football and played it well.

Until
today.

Her school called me in for a meeting to discuss
her future. I was told by the CEO that he did not believe girls should play on boys’
teams.

He was worried 1) the boys might have impure thoughts, 2) the locker room talk might be a bit much for her to handle,3) boys and girls should not compete in any sport, 4)
there are other sports she can play, 5) they are a private school and can make
any decision they want, and 6) he prayed about it and this was
the right thing to do.

He also quoted the Bible by saying that men and women are created
equal but different and therefore should not be allowed to play the same
sports.

Since I started openly talking about this, I have
found several other girls in America this has happened to. Girls who could play
just as well if not better than their male counterparts being told they cannot
compete with boys simply because they are a girl. If a girl can meet the same
requirements as the boys they should be allowed to play. We will not place
limitations on our daughters. We will teach them to fight harder. We will
teach them to take a stand."

POVEY COMMENTS

1.“”The boys might have impure
thoughts” Well, God bless them, 12
year old boys will have “impure” (whatever that means) thoughts come what
may. And so will 12 year old girls! I suspect that “impure thoughts” are the last
thing on the minds of boys/girls as they play (American) football. Their minds will be in winning.

2.The Locker Room talk might be a bit too much for
her to handle”. I am shocked that boys in a “Christian School
might be rude and crude (lol).

3.But of course: Girl children must
be protected from the rude, crude talk of boy children. They are far too
sensitive to handle it (lmao). And has
it occurred to the School CEO that rude, crude talk is also damaging to boy
children?

4.“Boys and girls should not compete in any sport”. Of course it would be so damn scary for male
chauvinists for - after all – the girls
might just win! It would be also be
dreadful and sinful because fundamentalist Christians girls/women are supposed
to be submissive to their male superiors (gag
me to the max)

5.“He prayed about it and this was the right thing to
do”. Oh for Christ’s
sake – “garbage in, garbage out”. Just about every prejudice and malfeasance
can be justified along the lines that “I

prayed about this.

I have a solution for the Christian School’s CEO. Clothe your women staff and students in
Burquas and Khimars, or Niqabs. Clothe
your male staff and students in Thobes. That’ll take care of the
problem. Yeah for “Christian Sharia”- (tongue
in cheek).

They relate a ghastly tale of horrendous
crime and murder, F.B.I. malfeasance and complicity, and the legal weaselling
of the Justice Department which prevented most of the victim’s survivors to be
compensated.

Cullen and Murphy’s research in their
preparation to write the book is comprehensive and telling. They provide extensive and commendable
footnotes to identify their sources. This means that the book lives up to the highest
standards of journalistic integrity.

I recommend the book without reserve.

And
as a comma-phile I rejoice in their
extensive use of this bit of punctuation, It makes the text so very readable
and intelligible.

Thursday, 20 June 2013

"Outside England’s Bristol Zoo there is a
parking lot for 150 cars and 8 buses. For 25 years, its parking fees were
managed by a very pleasant attendant.....

The fees for cars ($1.40),for buses (about $7).

Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never
missinga day of work,he just didn't show
up; so the zoo management called the city council and asked it to send them another
parking agent. The council did some research and
replied that the parking lot was the zoo's own responsibility.The
zoo advised the council that the attendant was a city employee.The
city council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the city
payroll. Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain
or France or Italy is a man who'd apparently had a ticket machine installed
completely on his own and then had simply begun to show up every day,
commencing to collect and keep the parking fees, estimated at about $560 per
day -- for 25 years.Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts tojust
over $7 million dollars......andno
one even knows his name."

It’s
an Urban Myth which is being perpetuated despite the efforts of the local
newspaper “The Bristol Post” (formerly known as the “Bristol Evening Post”) ;
of the Bristol Zoo; and of the Bristol City Council.

Why
will the myth not die?

I
suspect that’s because we all want it to be true: –

“a cunning attendant who cheated
the system”,

“an inept local government”,

a “dopey Zoo management”

all these are the stuff of legends.

Mostly
we want it to be true cos we want to be that mythical parking attendant who
cheated the system.

He
never lived. He never bucked the system. He is not in a luxurious retirement
community.

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

I was in some beautiful woodland with Jessica DeLand and
Red Kickery (young people when I was the Rector at St. Stephen’s, Pittsfield),
and with my oldest friend – Bristolian Jeff Davies (Jeff and I have known each
other since I was six and he was five).

The four of us were riding bicycles and adult tricycles on
a wide pathway in the woods.

The scene changed. We were sitting on some
steps outside a boat-house, looking at a lovely flowing river.

I exclaimed “I am so happy, and I will always be happy”.

------------------------------------------------------------

‘Twas such a lovely thought, and it has remained with me
all day.

Truth to tell I can be a bit
of a whiner/complainer but my dream “told” me that I have every reason to be
happy, so very happy.

(Dreams are often telling us
something important, but of course the characters in a dream (e.g. Jessica, Red
and Jeff) are fascinating tricks of the
mind, but they are not essential to the “plot”).

There is also, of course, the happiness which is occasioned by
beauty.

As it happens there were very many rainbows in the Boston area on
Monday. Thanks to digital cameras,
I-phones, the social media and the like, many of my Boston area friends posted
rainbow pictures on Facebook. Such beauty.

You'll see
some of them below.

It amuses me that in the biblical saga of Noah, the rainbow
is placed in the heavens not as a sign of God’s faithfulness to humankind (as they taught me
in Sunday School) , but as God’s reminder to God - see this (Genesis 9:12-15 NRSV)

12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that
I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all
future generations:13 I have set my (rain)
bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the
earth.14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,15I will
remember my covenant
that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the
waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Monday, 17 June 2013

This is my right arm as photographed on May 26th
2013. You will see my photo-dermatitis in
full bloom.

Now, after three weeks of taking strong doses of prednisone, and
of applying lavish amounts of prescription strength “Triamcinolone Acetonide
Cream USP, 0.1%” my arm appears to be (almost) back to normal.

These days I smother my exposed parts with SP 50
sun-screen, and I wear long sleeved shirts when I am out of doors.

I am not entirely certain that these precautions are 100%
efficacious.

I very much hope so, but I sometimes wonder if the dermatitis
is triggered by certain foods, or even by the shampoo I use.

I'll wait and see, and I'lltrust my good dermatologist to
make her best diagnoses.

About Me

I am from a blue collar background in Bristol, England, and was educated in the days of the 11+ system.
I am one of nine children. My eight siblings live in England.
After school I was first a banker; then a seminarian; then an Episcopal Priest.
I trained for ordained ministry at St. John's College, Nottingham, U.K; and the University of Nottingham from which I was graduated with the degree Bachelor in Theology.
I had 30 years of parish ministry in Massachusetts. (Fitchburg, Chicopee, Pittsfield and Cambridge).
Now retired, I live in Sarasota, FL.
My mantra: - "There is no secular world".